Former Newark Mayor Is Sentenced to 27 Months

NEWARK — A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Sharpe James, Newark’s towering yet controversial former mayor, to prison for 27 months at a simmering five-hour hearing in which he rebuked the prosecution for “heartlessly” adhering to a bureaucratic form of justice.

The sentence was a fraction of the 20 years prosecutors had requested for Mr. James, who was convicted on fraud charges stemming from the sale of city properties to a former companion for a fraction of their cost.

In rendering the sentence, Judge William J. Martini of United States District Court blistered the prosecution, saying he was “shocked and disappointed” by the sentencing request and questioning the contention that the James administration had been corrupt for years.

“Don’t talk about a history of corruption unless you can prove it,” Judge Martini, a former Republican congressman, scolded Judith H. Germano, the chief prosecutor in the case. “I don’t want to hear these allegations of a corrupt administration, he’s all-powerful, he didn’t do any good. I’m supposed to throw out the history of a man’s life for misconduct he committed at age 69?”

It has long been axiomatic to supporters of Mr. James, a five-term Democratic mayor, that he was Newark’s savior: a powerful yet sometimes vindictive man who improved Newark’s beaten-down image and brought to town the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Prudential Arena and the Newark Bears.

Yet Mr. James, 72, who also served for years as a state senator, has long found himself in the cross hairs of the federal government, which has investigated him on a range of corruption allegations for years.

Christopher J. Christie, the United States attorney for New Jersey, responded swiftly to Judge Martini’s attacks, wading into precisely the same waters his office had been counseled to avoid.

“In seven weeks, Sharpe James will report to federal prison,” Mr. Christie, a Republican, said at a news conference following the sentencing. “In seven weeks, he will be away from the house at the beach, the Rolls-Royce, the romantic strolls down Broad Street to catch the bus with regular people.”

Mr. James’s six-week trial this spring covered a host of urban touchstones, from sex to mayoral power to developable real estate. He was accused — and convicted — of helping Tamika Riley, 39, gain access to a city-sponsored program meant to redevelop Newark’s struggling South Ward and not disclosing that she was his romantic partner.

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Sharpe James, mayor of Newark from 1986 to 2006, left the courthouse there on Tuesday after his sentencing.Credit
Andrew Henderson/The New York Times

Ms. Riley, who was convicted of tax evasion and lying about her income to collect housing subsidies, was sentenced by Judge Martini on Tuesday to 15 months in prison and ordered to repay the city $27,000.

At issue were nine city-owned properties Ms. Riley bought through the program, for which she paid a total of $46,000 and resold quickly for a profit of more than $600,000. Prosecutors argued that Mr. James used his influence as mayor to help her consummate the deals. His lawyers contended that Mr. James had made no extraordinary or unlawful efforts on her behalf, noting that all sales had to be approved by the Municipal Council.

Last week, Judge Martini upheld the convictions, yet at Tuesday’s hearing he made a rather stunning statement, suggesting that the verdict did not capture the complexity of the issues at trial. “Now I’m trying to talk about what happened — what really happened,” he said.

By Judge Martini’s account, Mr. James erred in introducing Ms. Riley to officials at the program and further breached the public trust by failing to disclose their affair. While the judge said this was, indeed, a crime, he said it was a far less serious offense than other acts of corruption like bribery or extortion.

Newark, he went on, lost nothing in the deals. And, he mused aloud, if Mr. James and Ms. Riley had not been romantically involved, there might not have been a prosecutable case at all.

“It gets messy sometimes, life,” Judge Martini said. While not excusing Mr. James’s crimes, he added that the decisions of those in power are often understandably clouded by romantic entanglements.

As for Mr. James, he was contrite in court, rising in his own defense to apologize to Newark and to his wife and children.

“All my life I have simply tried to help the City of Newark,” he said. “I tried to make Newark, New Jersey, the best city in the world. If I made a mistake it was not malicious or with intent.”

Ms. Riley, who at one time ran a boutique in Newark, spoke as well, tearing up as she apologized to her family, to the court and to Mr. James.

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Tamika Riley, Mr. James's former companion, drew a 15-month term.Credit
Andrew Henderson/The New York Times

“I did not come to Newark, New Jersey, or any other city, to take or to defraud or whatever words they used,” she said. “For me, it’s just hard to take everybody’s opinion, their judging and all that. I’m truly, truly sorry. I am.”

More than 100 people filled the courtroom, including Mr. Christie and Anne Milgram, the state attorney general. A second courtroom was filled to capacity as the crowd watched the proceedings unfold on closed-circuit television. Still others milled in the corridors and outside the building in downtown Newark, many waiting to learn the fate of a longtime friend they had grown up with on the streets of the city.

The sentencing brought to a piercing end to the 36-year political career of Mr. James, a former gym teacher who went on to run New Jersey’s largest city for two decades with a charismatic mixture of optimism and cunning.

In May, prosecutors dropped charges that Mr. James bilked Newark out of $58,000 in personal expenses by abusing city credit cards to pay for everything from cruises to vacations to movie tickets. Mr. James denied the charges, and prosecutors said a conviction on these charges would not have added to his prison term even if he were found guilty.

Mr. James won 12 consecutive elections — for council, mayor and state senator — before deciding, amid a heated campaign and a federal investigation, not to seek re-election in 2006.

For Mr. Christie, the conviction of the former mayor headlines his list of more than 100 public officials across New Jersey who have either pleaded guilty or been convicted of corruption charges since he was sworn in six years ago.

But it was the predicament of Mr. James that drew the crowd. Rodney Davis, 43, a builder in Newark, called the trial a “modern-day lynching.”